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The
origins of the village are probably tied to the presence of gold in
the Bessa. The nucleus of Torrazzo is maybe the tower of boulders, the
“turas”mentioned in the bull of Onorio III of 17th
July 1223, which, erected according to Christian customs, could be the
Romanic bell tower of the present church. From the ecclesiatical point
of view, the parish priests of Torrazzo were subordinate to the Bishop
of Ivrea, while from the political-civl point of view they belong to
the Duchy at first and then to the Marquisate of Ivrea. On 26th
April 1412 the village was handed by the Lord of Buronzo to the Savoy
family, under which it remained until the French Revolution.
While separated from Sala by only one kilometre, the village of
Torrazzo followed an independent development by remaining for
centuries a border village and a place for battles . The lack of
economic resources did not allowed it to exceed the number of 976
inhabitants registered in 1900; today the village counts only 180
souls. In 1755 Super-intendent Blanciotti wrote: “… the
inhabitants have no industry … and are generally poor”. Torrazzo
never had important enterprises and domestic weaving became the
largest economic resource of the village by using the limited
cultivation of hemp and retting and braking it in the Pista stream. In
1720 there were already 86 looms for hemp included in the 950 present
in the Biellese area. The need to find raw materials pushed the
population to a seasonal migration toward the Canavese which was rich
with hemp and, from the beginning of 1800, toward Mongrand for the
retting of the fibres.
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Between
the end of 1700 and the middle of 1800, the male seasonal emigration
took away the majority of men from March to December, mostly working
in the costruction business for road works, tunnels and buildings in
the Napoleonic Empire cities. Between 1866 and 1875 only 15% of the
population was working as bricklayers, while between 1906-1915 a
percentage of
85%
was registered. At the same time, the women left at home to
care for children, animals and fields, started to develop a specific
working identity in weaving and this took
them to adapt quickly to the industrial textile industry of the
1900 in the Biellese area.
The
biographical cards of Torrazzo are 112, 11% of the inhabitants in
1911. 90.6% went to France, 5.1% to the United States, 2.6% to South
America, 0.9% to Africa and 0.8% to other European nations. The family
names most frequent are Zanetto, Manaldo, Bonino, Gariglio, Finotto,
Acotto and Anselmino. The oldest emigrant, in 1850, is Ignazio
Quaglino, bricklayer in the United States.
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